1993 Mumbai Serial Blasts Convict Mustafa Dossa Dies

Mumbai: 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Mustafa Dossa died on Wednesday after suffering a cardiac arrest. Dossa, who was lodged at Arthur Road Jail, was admitted to JJ Hospital in Mumbai early today morning after complaining of chest pain.

TP Lahane, the JJ Hospital dean, confirmed the death. JJ Hospital dean Dr Tayarao Lahane said that Dossa likely died of the cardiac arrest that he suffered today. The real cause of death will be determined only after an autopsy is performed, Lahane added. Hearing in to the 1993 serial blasts case had to be adjourned after the SSP informed the court about Mustafa Dossa’s sudden death.

Dossa, who was admitted to the JJ Hospital at 3 am this morning, was moved to the Coronary Care Unit at around 11.30 am. He died at 2.30 pm.

“Dossa was admitted to the jail ward of the hospital at 3 am,” Lahane said earlier today. Dossa complained of chest pain and had hypertension, diabetes and infection, Lahane added.

Dossa was one of the 6 men convicted by a special TADA court on June 16 in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case. The court is yet to pronounce the quantum of punishment in the case. Dossa was present in court on Tuesday when the special Central Bureau of Investigation prosecutor sought death penalty for him in the ’93 blasts case.

Along with Abu Salem, the court found Dossa, and four other men, guilty of conspiring to commit the dastardly Mumbai serial blasts, which killed over 250 people.

While convicting Dossa, the court found that the prosecution had been able to prove that Mustafa had called a meeting in Dubai after the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition.

The meeting was attended by Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Anees Ibrahim and Ejaz Pathan and was when the plan to bomb Mumbai was hatched.

The court also found that Mustafa was responsible for sending all the arms and ammunition to Mumbai and he bribed police and custom officers to ensure their entry into India’s financial capital.

According to the CBI, a part of the arms consignment arranged by Mustafa was sent to Bharuch in Gujarat. Mustafa Dossa also made arrangements for people to be brought from India and to meet Dawood in order to plan the revenge to the post-Babri demolition riots.

The CBI said Dossa was one of the “brains” behind the conspiracy and that his degree of responsibility towards the commission of the crime was the highest.

“If not for [Dossa] (and other absconding accused) the crime would never have taken place,” Special CBI counsel Deepak Salvi told the TADA court on Tuesday while seeking death penalty for Dossa. He said that first conspiracy meeting held at Dossa’s Dubai residence had sowed the first seeds of the conspiracy.

Salvi argued that Dossa was one of the masterminds and was in a dominant position of authority. “Dossa was from among the prime conspirators giving instructions to others,” the counsel told the court.

Dossa had the effective control over the incident and he was one of the architects of the blasts, he said.

“Just like the supreme court had held that Yakub Memon’s deeds cannot be viewed distinct from the act of Tiger Memon (a wanted accused in the blasts case), the same can be attributed to Dossa and other suggestion would be futile and worth discarding at the first glance”, Salvi argued.

He said Dossa was among the “archers wearing the quiver and releasing arrows and one of the principal perpetrators who got the work done through others”.

“The offence could have been averted had it not been hatched by the absconders (including Dossa) or if he had not initiated it by sending the first consignment of arms,” Salvi said.

From the execution of the conspiracy, there is a clear instigation by Dossa and he was directly responsible for the blasts as he was one of the brains behind plotting the attacks, the CBI counsel said.

“The crime of terrorism is in itself the aggravating circumstances as it carries a ‘special stigmatisation’ due to the deliberate form of inhuman treatment it represents and the severity of the pain and suffering inflicted,” Salvi argued. He said Dossa was a known smuggler and has criminal antecedents.

“The crime committed by him is of the utmost gravity, heinous, dastardly, diabolical and demonic with no regard towards the country and her citizens, and was carried out pruriently relishing the act of spilling the blood and slaughtering,” Salvi argued.